S4 Battery Life?


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Hey guys,

 

First day on these forums .. seems like a nice place!

 

Basically had my S4 since November last year and I have already been through 3 batteries already. You should have seen the first one. It started to swell up in its final days. Thought* it was going to explode :/

 

Tried various apps and doing my best to keep services off most of the time but I still have to charge the phone about 3 times a day. Its really annoying. I mainly just use it for some chat applications and to watch TV show files. Also really love the camera.

 

Should I just give up and upgrade to the S5? Any other better android optioins?

 

Regards,

 

Issh

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Sounds to me like the phone itself is defective. Is it still covered by warranty?

 

As for other Android options: Depends on your budget. Want an affordable phone running (almost) stock Android? Moto G. Google Android reference phone? Nexus 5. High-end phone? HTC One M8 or Sony Xperia Z2.

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Well how much usage is he device getting. If you are doing 4hrs of screen on time then surely the phone will be dead after some time. If it's sitting idle and you gotta charge it that often then something would be wrong with it.

 

Moved to Android

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Well how much usage is he device getting. If you are doing 4hrs of screen on time then surely the phone will be dead after some time. If it's sitting idle and you gotta charge it that often then something would be wrong with it.

The problem isn't to do with how long the phone lasts before the battery runs out, from the sounds of it the problem is that the battery gets physically damaged by the device.

I would take it in to a shop for someone to look at. There's no need to buy an S5 because of this issue, I've had my S4 for over a year I think and I have never had to swap out the battery.

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Sounds to me like the phone itself is defective. Is it still covered by warranty?

 

As for other Android options: Depends on your budget. Want an affordable phone running (almost) stock Android? Moto G. Google Android reference phone? Nexus 5. High-end phone? HTC One M8 or Sony Xperia Z2.

 

 

The problem isn't to do with how long the phone lasts before the battery runs out, from the sounds of it the problem is that the battery gets physically damaged by the device.

I would take it in to a shop for someone to look at. There's no need to buy an S5 because of this issue, I've had my S4 for over a year I think and I have never had to swap out the battery.

 

You have no idea how many times I've thought of taking it to the warranty centre but have been put off because a good friend of mine told me of a situation where they kept one of his Samsung devices for 3 months just for a small issue. In the end, the tech guys came up with some ###### reasons for having to keep it that long.

 

I wouldn't say you guys are wrong about my device having a problem. Another friend has an s4 too and he can use it all day and do everything with it with just one charge at night.

 

I honestly think its not worth the hassle. I could just sell this at a throwaway price and add some cash to get another phone.

 

I love Samsung because the camera is great and have gotten really used to the interface.

 

Android OS is easy to use so any other high-end android phone with a good camera and performance / battery life would be ideal for me. Catching up on TV shows and other media while in the car is time saved.

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Another idea to test - since you're considering getting rid of it anyway - would be installing a custom ROM on it. My phone was able to get through a day with some decent usage and be on about 10% by the end of the day. I recently installed Imperium ROM on my phone. On version 7 the battery life did incredibly well, and while it's not as great on V9 compared to V7, it's still a lot better than when I had it on stock or the previous custom ROM I was using.

And Roger, I owe you an apology. I jumped on the "battery swelling" part of the post without seeing that it only started swelling towards the end. It could well be an issue of what is draining the battery's life. :) One swelled battery doesn't necessary point towards an issue with the device.

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Another idea to test - since you're considering getting rid of it anyway - would be installing a custom ROM on it. My phone was able to get through a day with some decent usage and be on about 10% by the end of the day. I recently installed Imperium ROM on my phone. On version 7 the battery life did incredibly well, and while it's not as great on V9 compared to V7, it's still a lot better than when I had it on stock or the previous custom ROM I was using.

And Roger, I owe you an apology. I jumped on the "battery swelling" part of the post without seeing that it only started swelling towards the end. It could well be an issue of what is draining the battery's life. :) One swelled battery doesn't necessary point towards an issue with the device.

 

Well the second battery would only keep charge for a few hours. I changed to the third one liks 2 weeks ago and it still have to charge it like 2-3 times a day..

 

The only time it actually lasted the whole day is when we went out of the city for beach trip and because there was terrible network I had the network services off and was able to watch several hours of video with no problem.

 

The phone's hardware could just be buggy who knows .. :/

 

I even finally got the official KitKat update but doesn't seem like too much change from the 4.3 version.

 

As for installing a custom ROM, haven't really done that before. I could just read up on it online and do it. It voids the warranty but who cares. I still don't feel like dealing with the warranty centre here.

 

Nick / Frank - what android high-end phone would you go for with my current requirements?

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For battery life, try the Sony Xperia series. My friend has the Z1 which has an insane battery life. He tethered his phone to his laptop to play World of Warcraft on the train, and after an hour and a half he had only lost 5%. He then went further and showed me that from a day of reasonable usage with the battery starting at 50%, he still had 30% at the end of the day.

I'm looking in to getting the Z2 myself at some point unless a newer model comes along.

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Another idea to test - since you're considering getting rid of it anyway - would be installing a custom ROM on it. My phone was able to get through a day with some decent usage and be on about 10% by the end of the day. I recently installed Imperium ROM on my phone. On version 7 the battery life did incredibly well, and while it's not as great on V9 compared to V7, it's still a lot better than when I had it on stock or the previous custom ROM I was using.

And Roger, I owe you an apology. I jumped on the "battery swelling" part of the post without seeing that it only started swelling towards the end. It could well be an issue of what is draining the battery's life. :) One swelled battery doesn't necessary point towards an issue with the device.

That's for the I9505 . Make sure you have that version OP. there are several s4 versions,  I9505, I9000, I9515 etc

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For battery life, try the Sony Xperia series. My friend has the Z1 which has an insane battery life. He tethered his phone to his laptop to play World of Warcraft on the train, and after an hour and a half he had only lost 5%. He then went further and showed me that from a day of reasonable usage with the battery starting at 50%, he still had 30% at the end of the day.

I'm looking in to getting the Z2 myself at some point unless a newer model comes along.

 

Well ###### .. 5% for 90 minutes is absolutely insane! If I try to tether, in that 90 minutes the phone will go from 100% to dead if I don't leave it on charge.

 

Edit: Sigh, didn't realize certain words are censored here.

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There was a known problem with batteries swelling up and Samsung were replacing them free. Try contacting Samsung.

If you're in the UK or Europe there is a 2 year warantee on the phone and 6 months on batteries.

 

Try to make sure you buy genuine Samsung batteries and not be tempted to buy cheapies from ebay/amazon.

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what android high-end phone would you go for with my current requirements?

OnePlus One - The 3100 mAh battery gives you some fantastic battery life, with heavy use I?ve never drained the battery in a day. Quite often I can easily get two days use out the phone with a few hours of screen on time each day.

 

I realise you need an invite to purchase one, however if you live outside the US its pretty easy to import the Chinese version of the phone. I did just that and have been loving it, see: Importing the One Plus One From China - LTE Bands & What You Need To Know

The phone is an amazing price and fantastic spec, really cant rate the phone enough.

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I know my S4 had great battery life until the latest OS patches they did, and now occasionally the phone will go from 90% to 10% in about 30 minutes of sitting idle on the table. It is odd, and yes, that is with two different batteries. I have noticed that ending all apps seems to fix the issue for a while, but I have yet to find the exact app that causes the issue (battery manager says most use is screen, but meh).

 

I think it is a combo of software and battery design, but I haven't had physical battery damage like others here. (knocks on desk)

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OnePlus One - The 3100 mAh battery gives you some fantastic battery life, with heavy use I?ve never drained the battery in a day. Quite often I can easily get two days use out the phone with a few hours of screen on time each day.

 

I realise you need an invite to purchase one, however if you live outside the US its pretty easy to import the Chinese version of the phone. I did just that and have been loving it, see: Importing the One Plus One From China - LTE Bands & What You Need To Know

The phone is an amazing price and fantastic spec, really cant rate the phone enough.

Stooopid invite system :(

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